Sonipat agriculture department training farmers about the modern techniques of paddy farming

SONIPAT: The agriculture department of Sonipat has invested Rs 12 lakh on an awareness drive to train farmers about the modern techniques of paddy farming. Itwill increase the production of rice by 10-15 percent and enable them to save 30-40 percent of water used for irrigation. The drive will be conducted under two programmes - the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna and Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA), training 100 farmers in the seven blocks of the district.

"In the last paddy season, Sonipat witnessed around 25 percent decrease in rice production and the major reason behind this production slump was the water level going down in the region," said Anil Sehrawat, deputy director of agriculture, Sonipat. The lowering of underground water levels has increased the input cost of the farmers by around 14 percent, causing a slump in their profitability.

Sehrawat added that while Rs 7.5 lakh has been allocated under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, Rs 4 lakh has been paid under ATMA. The remaining Rs 50,000 has been allocated for the training of 100 leading farmers in the area.

TECHNO FARMING

"In this drive, we are teaching farmers about the use of technology and its advantages. In first stage, we teach them about the use of laser land leveller, which helps them making their land evenly balanced. It negates water-logging in the field, irrespective of the area of land," said Sehrawat.

"The laser land leveller helps land to absorb water and fertilisers evenly, leading to uniform growth of plants," said Dr Indu Sharma, project director of the Directorate of Wheat Research (DWR), Karnal and added, "It helps in containing expenses on irrigation and fertiliser. Farmers using laser land leveller can expect at least three percent extra production from their land."

"The concept behind the use of laser land leveller is profitable water management in the farm. The use of this tool helps farmers curtail water consumption during irrigation by around 15 to 25 percent. Laser land leveller can be used in any kind of crop production but it is mainly used in paddy and wheat," said Dr Azad Singh Dahiya, chief scientist at the Kisan Vigyan Kendra, Unjha in Panipat.

"Apart from judicious use of water, this farm technique doesn't require much of labour because drip irrigation is used once in a fortnight. So, a farmer needs to irrigate his field twice in a month, while earlier he had to water the field regularly for the first two months," said Sehrawat of the Sonipat agriculture department. "In this practice, a farmer doesn't require labour or much of water as it has been fixed to twice or thrice a month. It helps saving water by around 35-40 percent, a win-win situation for paddy farmers in Sonipat where water level has drastically gone down in last few years," said Devender Singh, agriculture development officer at the agriculture department of Sonipat.

BENEFITS

"This drive would help farmers to enhance the yield by around 15 percent while their input cost would go down by at least 25 percent. Also, their diesel consumption for irrigation would go down, helping the environment," Sehrawat said.

Bachchan Singh, a beneficiary farmer of this drive in Bhadana block said, "These new techniques have reduced our dependence on manual labour, whose availability has gone down in last few years. As the laser land leveller makes our land evenly balanced, it helps us contain our fertiliser cost as well." He said that initially the input cost for paddy farming was around Rs 22,000 per acre while now it has slipped to around Rs 18,000 to Rs 19,000 per acre.

"On an average, a paddy farmer receives around Rs 35,000 to Rs 38,000 per acre. So, average return in paddy farming is now around Rs 16,000 to Rs 20,000 in a season," Singh added.

Asked about the number of farmers being benefitted from this drive, Devender said, "It is difficult to tell the exact number but out of seven blocks; Rai, Ganaur and Old Sonipat are the major contributors in net rice production of the district. These blocks produce around 60 percent of the net rice in the region. There are 348 villages in all these seven blocks in Sonipat, and 90 percent of the farmers here are engaged in paddy farming." He said that the beneficiary farmers would demonstrate the benefits of our training to their village or block brethrens.